Independent Author

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Thursday, December 1, 2011

Hey, Wanna Help?

I've been kicking around an idea originally proposed by Senacharim (much thanks) that I think could be a lot of fun, enlightening, and a way to get the names of a bunch of young aspiring writers out there. So, here's the gist:

A collection of short stories, roughly 8k-10k words each, revolving around the Occupy protests going on throughout the world. It's long been said that all writers have a relationship with their hometowns, so what I'd be looking to do is get folks from around the country (and hopefully world) to contribute to this effort. I don't think there needs to be a true overarching theme or point of view for this work. Stories could be written from the point of view of the protesters, of law enforcement, of city government officials, of spectators, of workers, whatever.

My inclination would be to create a very vague, super open ended outline once I have a set roster of contributors and their proposed ideas. I would write the short story for Chicago (of course) and collect, edit, and meld the rest of the stories together into a mildly cohesive work. This would be a true collaborative effort, meaning all writers would obviously get credit and input on how the work turns out overall. While the idea is rough, I think it's a good one, and I'd love to hear thoughts on who would like to contribute and how to best flesh this out.

As part of the collaboration, I'd also like to discuss how we want to disseminate this work when it is done. I'm going to put my foot down and say that an eBook version should be released for either an extremely low price or free, but that downed foot isn't unmovable either....

This is a very VERY daunting task. Even in my town of Dallas, it would be difficult to bring back the stories and work on them enough to shorten them down. Would you want just one character or the evolution of the movement? Is it better to discuss the options that shaped this movement or is it better to discuss their successes? I'd love to give the reasons we have come to this situation today, but I must admit, it's a lot of information.

I'd actually like to keep it more ambiguous than that. I want to tell stories, a bunch of them, from multiple points of view, and let the reader decide what they think. I wasn't looking at this as a platform to preach for either side, but I did think a kind of butterfly effect thread would need to be woven throughout all the stories...